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OSTRANDER, Ohio — As darkness swallowed the Union County house where authorities figured a
suspect was holed up tonight, the tensions along Smart-Cole Road mounted: How would it end? Would
the man come out? Or would the deputies force their way inside and, if so, what would they
find?

Authorities already suspected that the man inside — who authorities know but have not publicly
named — had killed his 51-year-old estranged wife earlier in the day. She had been shot.

But after a standoff of nearly five hours, a robot sent into the couple’s home near the
intersection of Smart-Cole and Brown roads just before 9:30 p.m. found the answer: The man was
dead, too, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The ordeal began at 4:10 p.m. when a passerby who saw the woman’s body lying in a ditch near the
intersection of Smart-Cole and Brown roads called 911. Another passerby stopped and reported seeing
a man walk away from the scene and to a nearby house where, authorities later said, the couple had
lived together until a week ago, when the wife had moved out.

Deputies arrived almost immediately. They shut down the area and evacuated the eight closest
houses, and the standoff began.

Sgt. Chris Skinner, spokesman for the Union County sheriff’s office, said one of the passersby
tried to administer first aid to the woman. But it was too late. Union County Coroner David
Applegate was at the scene, which isn’t far off Rt. 42 near the Union/Delaware county line, and
said she was already dead.

All through the evening, specialized SWAT trucks and cruisers and pickups carrying officers from
multiple departments rolled up and down the country roads as curious neighbors watched, mostly from
behind their screen doors.

Skinner said authorities had been in no hurry to force their way inside the home. They knew the
couple’s three children were safe and accounted for and there were no hostages.

They tried for hours to make contact with the suspect in a variety of ways before sending the
robot in after dark. “He’s a suspect, and we want him to walk out alive,” Skinner said. “Right now,
we’ve got nothing but time.”

Among the neighbors who did venture out was Melanie Williams, a schoolteacher who lives about a
mile down Smart-Cole Road from the intersection where it all happened. She could see the flashing
lights, and she came to offer a deputy and state troopers standing guard some bottled water.

Williams has lived in the neighborhood nearly 15 years and said nothing like this had ever
happened.

“It’s the country. We ride our bikes down the road and wave to everyone,” she said.

Williams didn’t know who the dead woman was at the end of her road — word of the woman’s
identity hadn’t even filtered through the countryside — but she said the standoff had everybody on
edge.

“It’s usually quiet. Peaceful,” she said. “But I guess you never can understand what will make
someone do something awful.”